Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sparred with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on Tuesday during a highly contentious hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel.

Booker grilled Patel on a range of issues, including accusations that Patel’s FBI was pressuring and harassing journalists.

Patel insisted his FBI “focuses on the leakers of classified information that endangered the lives of elected officials and American citizens. We are not targeting reporters at any point in time. We are trying to find out who in the government–”

Booker cut in, “Mr. Chairman, this is still my time. He can answer at the end of my time, but this is my time.”

“No, he’s not. Your time’s up,” Grassley replied.

“No, sir. My time is not up,” Booker shot back, adding, “You allowed Mike Lee to go two and a half minutes over, but yet a Democratic senator, you’re going to cut off?”

“At a previous meeting, I let you go three hearings over,” Grassley replied, as Booker insisted, “As you have other people.”

“I have one more question, one more line of questioning to give,” Booker pressed as Grassley added, “No, no, he—”

“So then I’ll make my concluding remark, and you can do whatever you want, sir,” Booker declared, adding:

My concluding remark is: we don’t have an FBI director, we have a lackey here who’s using government—and frankly, he’s not even a good lackey, he’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends. He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify even to be an FBI agent. He won’t answer questions for a committee. He insults Democrats here, and you don’t step in. He has a little book by his side that he literally is using to try to intimidate people, in the same way he intimidates reporters.

“Your time is up,” Grassley said as Booker continued:

He is a disgrace, sir, and the fact that we are not asking him—in fact, demanding him—to answer the most basic oversight questions is a further testimony to what is bad. What’s bad is not just that we have a rogue FBI agent intimidating reporters; what’s bad is that we have Republicans in the Senate who are enabling him to go without any objective oversight, transparency, or accountability.

“Why do you—why do you—” Grassley cut in as Booker spoke over him.

“Why do you think you’re something special? Now, we’ve had—” Grassley finally managed to say.

“I’m not special. My time has just now—” Booker hit back, as Grassley cut in, “We had one Republican go over, and we have one Democrat go over.”

“Sir, you are not being balanced in your way. My time has just now reached what Mike Lee did, and we as a committee have done what you’ve done before, which is ask him to answer basic questions. He won’t even do it in writing. This is a mockery and a sham. We have a rogue agent intimidating the press, violating people’s First Amendment rights, and doing everything the president has,” Booker fumed.

“You don’t show much respect for your chairman. You’ve gone on now for three minutes,” Grassley added.

“I have utter respect for you. In fact, I have love for you, and this is why I know this is not who you are. You are not holding this witness in an objective way to answer the questions that are given to him by Democratic senators, yet he insults them time and time again,” Booker replied, adding:

What he did to Senator Welch should make this whole committee stand up, walk out, and sanction this man for speaking to one of my colleagues the way he spoke to them. Even Senator Whitehouse, who was then sitting in, tried to control this witness, who makes everything personal. I have a right to ask questions about how he’s spending money on his girlfriend, and yet he stonewalls me but will run on Fox News and talk about any and all these issues. This is ridiculous. This is a sham. And what’s bad is not the person sitting there who’s a mockery to the office he holds—what is bad is the people who are enabling him to do so.

“You understand, Mr. Director, why during the Kavanaugh hearings I let people talk and talk? It takes longer to shut them up than it does to let them talk. Now, go ahead and say what you want to say,” Grassley concluded.

“I don’t have much to say. This guy called me a thug. It’s kind of ironic—he’s running for president of the United States. He just got his 20-second ad campaign. Next,” said Patel.

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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